


The Incredible Hulk

by RoseyPoseyPie



Series: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Autistic Bruce Banner, Bisexual Betty Ross, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Bruce Banner-centric, Canon-Typical Violence, Comic Book Science, Comic Book Violence, F/F, Female Bruce Banner, Genderbending, Government Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Lesbian Bruce Banner, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, Post-Break Up, Suicide Attempt, The Incredible Hulk (2008) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-25 04:11:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16189808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseyPoseyPie/pseuds/RoseyPoseyPie
Summary: Roberta "Bertie" Banner was an odd child. Either she was silent, or she would talk without end about something. Her childhood tantrums never seemed to wane with age, either. At five years old, she would still sob over specific and unusual things. Her food, her socks, how loud the television was. After her father's abuse and her parents' divorce, it was her mother who told her to go to graduate school. It was Betty who told Bertie maybe eight doctorates was enough. Then, there was the accident. Now, all Bertie wants is to make the tantrums stop, as they're far more destructive now than they had ever been before.





	1. Origin

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome!
> 
> This is the second installment of my "Anything You Can Do" series. I have a Tumblr dedicated to this universe: aycdicdbmcu.tumblr.com
> 
> I also have a Bertie Banner playlist on 8tracks:
> 
> [Bertie Banner's Beats](https://8tracks.com/roseyposeypie/bertie-banner-s-beats?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) from [RoseyPoseyPie](http://8tracks.com/roseyposeypie?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) on [8tracks Radio](https://8tracks.com?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button).
> 
> I hope you all enjoy! :)

Roberta Elizabeth Banner was an odd child. Her parents lovingly called her “Bertie” from birth, and it was at birth that she had the most love from her parents. As she got older, it became undeniable that there was something odd about Bertie. She was behind on all her milestones in the first year of life. She cried a lot as a child, often for the most inane things. Her parents learned that she had to wear socks at all times. Any time Bertie wasn’t wearing socks, she cried, with the only exception being the bath.

 

When Bertie learned to walk, she stomped around the house, knocking things over. She was a toddler, their coordination was supposed to be poor, but it was one of the many things that concerned her parents. Bertie had two modes for quite a while. Either she was silent, or she would talk without end about something. Her tantrums never seemed to wane with age, either. At five years old, she would still sob over specific things. Her food, her socks, how loud the television was.

 

Bertie’s mother wanted for her to see a doctor, that there was something odd about their daughter. Bertie’s father was incessant that she would grow out of it. Her misbehavior was just poor parenting on her mother’s part. Bertie’s mother stayed at home, after all. Bertie would be curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth, clicking her tongue, as she heard her parents yelling in the other room. Her mother’s tearful attempts to calm her hollering father. Soon, Bertie knew when a fight would sound because of a sharp and hollow sound, and a yelp from her mother. That was how they always ended.

 

When Bertie went to school, things somehow became easier. She had something to focus on, and other children she was forced to interact with. Her teachers would calmly talk her through her tantrums instead of appeasing her (like her mother did) or yelling at her (like her father did).

She was good at school, too. She could read quickly, she was good at math, she loved bugs and books she could barely carry. She didn’t like to spend a lot of time with kids her age, but they still forced her to try to play with them from time to time. As long as Bertie wasn’t bossed around to much, she found that there were some games she actually liked to play. She could talk in class about subjects, although sometimes she didn’t understand what people meant or what they wanted. She was slow in those departments, but she made up for it because she was sweet, she was obviously trying. She was good at school, she had a few friends, she still hated it when she wasn’t wearing socks.

 

One day, in the fifth grade, Bertie’s parents were asked to see the principal about her. Her father was grumbling, yelling at Bertie, asking her what she did wrong this time. Bertie’s mother was quiet. Bertie hadn’t done anything wrong. The principal wanted to see Bertie’s parents because Bertie was smart. Very smart. They wanted to move her into high school next year. Her mother was shocked and proud. Her father was disinterested. So what if she was smart? She was weird. She barely had friends as it was. She wouldn’t fit in. They would still have to take care of her after she graduated from high school before she was eighteen. It’s not like they would send their  _ daughter _ to  _ college _ . The fight that resulted didn’t end, but it was the last one. Her mother said something quietly. Her father stormed off to bed. An hour later, Bertie’s mother woke her up, with two bags under each arm. Bertie’s mother took her to the home of Bertie’s aunt, her father’s sister, in the city. Bertie’s aunt had a happy marriage, a handsome husband, a baby daughter, and a house with two spare bedrooms. Her parents went through something called a divorce. Her aunt tried to explain it to her, but Bertie wasn’t that interested. She was happy the fights were over.

 

Bertie was still good at school, but her father was right. The people in high school weren’t happy to have a girl who was eleven in their classes, and be better than them. Bertie’s only friend was her cousin, Jenny. Bertie didn’t mind eating lunch alone, because she could read. She liked to talk to her teachers after class, because her teachers liked that she was smart and she was passionate. As she got older, she could handle conversation easier. There were things about it that made more sense to her, it was a learned skill, like ice-skating. When she was a senior, she actually had made a few friends of other nice, quiet girls in her classes. The next step was college. Bertie had gotten a full ride to Harvard University, in Massachusetts. It was on the other side of the country. Bertie was scared, she was excited, she was eager to learn and to do something new. Her mother was scared, too. She was half-considering moving with Bertie so she could be close to her. Who would help Bertie if she had a tantrum? What if she ran out of socks?

 

Bertie’s mother paid extra so Bertie could have a single dorm. Bertie was still generally quiet except in class, she was still unwaveringly focused on her work, but she managed to make friends quickest than ever before. Smart girls like her, who were impressed by the fact she skipped junior high altogether. One of them told her that what everyone had called “weird” and “odd” was actually “asperger’s syndrome” and that there were ways to make Bertie’s life easier. Bertie brought home a lot of books from the library that night, eager to learn, as always. Her interest in her condition made her go through school at Harvard and get a bachelor’s degree in psychology. They said she was a prime candidate for graduate school.

 

“Do it,” Her mother had said. “Go to graduate school. Go to graduate school as many times as you want to. Get an education, you deserve it, Bertie.”

 

Bertie went to graduate school, and with her work ethic, she finished her Ph.D. in psychology a year early. She was excited to tell her mother, but that’s when they heard the bad news. Her mother had breast cancer, stage four. Bertie, despite her degree, couldn’t do anything with a psychology degree to help her mother with the radiation and chemotherapy. Bertie buried her mother days before her job teaching part-time at Harvard began. As an employee, she had tuition for credits waived. After grading papers, she was writing papers and working on her second bachelor in physics. That bachelor degree was followed by a Ph.D. in radiophysics and a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. Her dissertations were written within mere weeks, and astounded her committees. Her fourth Ph.D. was in biochemistry. The research she performed for that degree sparked her interest in genetics, which was her fifth Ph.D. Her mother had told her years ago to get as many degrees as she wanted, and now, getting degrees was all she knew. There was a break between her fifth and sixth Ph.D. People hoped she was finally done, settled before she reached a half-dozen. However, it wasn’t long until she started studying biomedical engineering. After that, she decided to go to medical school, just to try something different. She never had any desire to actually start practicing medicine.

 

Bertie was working on her seventh Ph.D., in quantum mechanics, when she met Betty. Betty was a cellular biologist, who had joined the team at Harvard so she could complete her own Ph.D. Bertie and Betty bonded over their relationships with their fathers and their love of academics. It was Betty who told Bertie maybe eight doctorates was enough. For the first time in her life, someone had told Bertie to stop going to graduate school.

 

Bertie and Betty had an odd relationship, the people of Harvard decided. They went to dinner together all the time, talking about science. Betty got Bertie to do ridiculous and childish things, like take hallucinogenic drugs for a study and feed ducks. Bertie helped Betty realize that it wasn’t her job in life to impress people. They didn’t date any men, at all. It was par for the course with Bertie, but unusual for Betty. They move in together, but they were such close friends, nobody was surprised by that.

 

Bertie got her seventh and final Ph.D. around the same time that Betty’s project at Harvard ended. Her employment was temporary, and she talked Bertie into moving with her to Willowdale, Virginia where Betty’s alma mater, Culver University, was. Both women got jobs as professors at the university. Bertie quickly became the reason that Culver was put on the map. The woman released papers as if she was defecating them, and her students adored her quiet, bookish demeanor. She and Betty lived in a one bedroom apartment, citing that it was all they could afford. It was odd, because they certainly made enough. “Student loans,” the women shrugged. Bertie had a whole drawer full of socks, because Betty was always buying her new ones. Colorful ones. Strange ones. It was almost like the women were in love.

 

* * *

 

 

The military came to Culver University and offered Bertie and Betty administrative roles in their Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project. The abstract fascinated Bertie. It would have required, typically, a dozen professionals. That was where Bertie’s eight doctorates came in handy, she had the mental aptitude and context of eight people. Despite that, they weren’t getting the results they wanted with their tests. Bertie argued because the source material was calibrated for humans, successful implementation required human experimentation. They couldn’t get the permission for that.

 

Bertie was so sure that they had it, that they were close, she just needed to test it on a willing human candidate. She wanted to prove the worth of the project and impress Betty’s father, General Ross. That candidate ended up being herself. Her instability did not combine well with the already-present volatility of the project. The result was large, dangerous, and green. Several people were injured, including Betty and her father. Bertie came back, hoping to see Betty. Hoping to apologize, to fix her mistake. Ross yelled at her. He told her that her project wasn’t to cure illnesses at all, but was a weapon. That Bertie was now a weapon, and she had to donate herself to the military, or deal with the consequences. She refused, becoming a fugitive, and leaving. She tried to head to Canada, but she was stopped by border control. She was scared, and strangers were touching her too much, and there was so much noise and light. She turned into her other form, a more violent manifestation of her childhood tantrums, and ripped up a freeway. She headed south, to central america. There, she angered a cartel by helping children escape their service. They dragged her and tried to beat her and rape her. It was the green thing inside her who destroyed the whole town. She kept wandering between South and North America, her transience keeping people safe, but wearing down on her.

In Greenland, she tried to shoot herself. The green thing spit the bullet out and broke a glacier.

She returned to South America, being in contact with a cellular biologist she knew as “Mr. Blue” as she searched for vascular plants that could inhibit her condition. She settled in Rio de Janeiro. She learned Portuguese and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, both for self-defense and discipline. She had a scruffy little dog, and she switched jobs at various local factories, doing repairs on the large machines. She was one of the many women in these places who was harassed by the large men, and she had befriended many as a means to look out for one another. They paired up when they walked from work to their apartment buildings, to keep each other safe.

 

Things were alright, but Bertie made a mistake. A drop of her infected blood found itself in a soda bottle, and the resulting illness of the customer caused for the United States Army to determine her location. She was planning on leaving Brazil anyway, if she wanted to make a cure, she needed the original data from Culver University. It just so happened a few nights before she planned to leave, she was attacked by the military. A team of men with weapons chased her through the slums. She tried to keep herself calm, but then she was a woman running alone through the streets, attracting a gang. A gang combined with the military tactical squad, and she was overwhelmed. She had a tantrum. The green woman flung people against walls and broke their spines. She didn’t remember that, she just woke up in the jungle, with scraps of clothes to cover herself in. A woman and her daughter found her and gave her something better to wear. She had ended up in the Guatemalan jungle. The path from Guatemala to Virginia was long and miserable. She was often hungry, often cold, often scared. She had hope that something would change, which is what kept her moving forward.

 

* * *

 

She arrived at Culver University in an oversized hoodie, jeans, socks, and sneakers. A baseball cap was pulled low over her eyes as she walked through the campus. She had been a graduate student for twenty years, she knew how to look like one as she slinked through the campus. She reached Maynard Hall of Physical Sciences, where her old office was, and where the project had all began. The security inside was intense. They were checking ID, and they had a metal detector. She would have to find another way in. She walked a familiar path, from Maynard Hall to the biology offices. There, on the board in the lobby, was Betty’s name.

__

_ Cellular Biology - Dr. Elizabeth Ross _

Bertie sat outside the building with cheap decaffeinated coffee and one of those cheap, trashy paperbacks. She watched the entrance. She would recognize Betty when she saw her, and indeed, she did. Betty walked outside, speaking to another woman and laughing. Bertie wanted to speak to her, but instead, she followed her. Her friend and her enjoyed coffee together, and parted. Betty spent some time on her phone, and then a man came over. Betty hugged him, kissed him, walked off holding his hand. What was Bertie expecting? She left.

She had already formulated an idea of how to get into Maynard Hall. She would need help from an old friend for it to be efficient. She headed from the University to a pizza parlor in the downtown area. She knocked on the door despite the closed sign. Luckily, Stan was still there. Stan was the owner of Stanley’s Pizza Parlor, and one of Bertie’s friends. He was happy to see her, and they sat together with a pizza to catch up.

“I heard so many rumors. People say the worst things without any idea what they’re saying,” Stan informed her with contempt.

“Stan, I promise you, whatever you’ve heard about me isn’t true,” Bertie said. Stan smiled and patted her leg reassuringly.

“I know it. I know people and I alway knew it. But you know how I felt about you two... Have you talked to-” Stan was obviously referring to Betty.

“No, she’s with-”

“Samson. Yeah, you heard. He’s a head shrink. They say one of the best. But a good guy. Take my word. Reminds me of you a lit- Sorry. Bert, what can I do to help you?” Stan asked.

“I could use a place to sleep,” Bertie said.

“You’ll stay in the spare room upstairs. Use the back, nobody’ll see you come or go.”

Bertie smiled. “Can I deliver a few pizzas?”

“I can just give you money-”

“No.”

“Deliver all you want, I’ll give Lou the week off. But someday you gotta tell me what all this was about.”

“You’d never believe me,” Bertie said.

 

* * *

 

The next day, she was wearing new clothes, sunglasses, and a hat indicating where she was delivering for. Stanley’s was a favorite of the students and staff at Culver University, and it was a good way for her to go around the campus while being inconspicuous. She delivered pizzas to students studying in the dorms, some annoying sorority girls, and a staff meeting. When it was night, she headed over to Maynard hall. 

“I got a delivery on five,” She told the muscular security guard.

“I don’t think anyone’s up there,” The guard said.

“Everybody’s bailing. I already have this medium. You want it?” She offered the pizza to the guard, who accepted it and allowed her into the building. She took the familiar route to her old lab in the basement. It was gone, now replaced with a computer lab. The only person in there was a lone graduate student, working well into the night. Bertie remembered when that was her. She walked up to the graduate student, "Someone called this in and then split. You want it?”

“Whoever you are, you are my new personal hero,” the guy said.

“Can I go online?” Bertie asked.

“Be my guest,” The student shrugged. Bertie settled into a chair and loaded up the mainframe for Culver University. Her account was terminated, undoubtedly, but she could maybe get in on Betty’s account. She remembered her old password was “BettyLovesBertie” but that one, unfortunately, was no longer her password. Bertie remembered Betty’s old password, “CellsUnite” and managed to get into the mainframe. 

“What’re you doing?” The student asked from the other end of the lab.

“Email,” Bertie lied. “Pizza delivery is temporary. I want to see how my applications are doing.”

“Oh, good luck,” The man said.

In reality, Bertie was searching for the old lab records. However, nothing was working. None of the keywords resulted in what she needed, and the file numbers she remembered were blank. They had completely deleted all records of her work. She sagged into the chair.

“No bites?” The student asked sympathetically.

Bertie sighed. “I guess I’ll deliver pizzas a while longer.” She logged out.

 

* * *

 

That night, at Stan’s, Bertie explained to her old friend exactly why she had come back to Willowdale while still not telling him about her other side.  She explained that the military was after her because of the way the experiment went wrong, and she was hoping to fix what had happened by getting her old research, but it was gone.

“The whole building was closed for a year after the explosion. Military guards-” Stan was explaining.

“There’s nothing for me here. I don’t know why I came. I hoped...” She let her hopes go unfinished.

“What’ll you do now?” Stan asked.

“I’ll go in the morning,” Bertie sighed.

“Where?”

“Can't say,” she said. 

“I’m so sorry. I wish I could-”

“You did help me, Stan,” Bertie told him. There was the tinkling sound of the door opening.

“I’ll just get rid of em and we’ll have some food,” Stan assured her, heading out. Bertie cleaning up the back room a little bit. She stepped into the doorway and was putting away the jacket and hat she had borrowed for Pizza delivery when she saw who the customers were. It was Betty and her new beau, and worst of all, Betty saw her in the doorway. A jolt shuddered through Bertie, and she disappeared into the back, trying to calm herself down. She had to get out of there. She went out to the back parking lot, where the rain was starting to fall. Great, her socks would get wet. 

“BERTIE!” Betty called from the other end of the lot. Bertie turned around to see Betty, looking shocked and scared.

“It’s alright,” Bertie said delicately. Betty was marching toward her, and Bertie was frozen in her tracks.

“Betty?” A man, the man Samson, came out of the back off the shop.

Betty was still focused on Bertie, “When did-? Are you-?”

“I’m alright. I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to-” Bertie began.

“Betty, what happened, are you okay?” Her boyfriend asked her. “Who is this?”

“Leo,” she said. “This is… this is Bertie. Bertie Banner.”

“Leonard Samson,” Samson shook Bertie’s hand. “You’re Betty’s old roommate, right?” Bertie nodded.

Betty was still shocked and full of questions “Can you-? There are just so many things - I can’t -”

“We should get in out of the rain. We’re just on our way home now. Will you join us?”

Bertie didn’t say anything for a while, then she came to a decision. “Yes, thank you, I would like that. Where? I'll meet you later.”

“Thirty-nine Hillhouse, on the corner of Maple,” Samson said.

“Alright,” Bertie said.

She didn’t start heading to thirty-nine Hillhouse. She burst into her room above Stanley’s Pizza Parlor and began to shove what she had into her mylar knapsack, ready to leave Willowdale. She said her hurried farewells to Stan and left, hoping to head north.

The rain got more and more intense. Bertie was uncomfortable, and afraid that she was getting close to a tantrum with everything that had happened and how she was feeling. A car pulled up beside where she was walking, and a woman flew out of it. It was Betty. She rushed toward Bertie and hugged her. Bertie embraced her in return, and the stress around her was melting away.

“Please don’t go away. Please. I need to see you and talk to you,” Betty begged.

Bertie shook her head, “It’s not safe.”

“I don’t care. Please. You can’t just disappear again. I couldn’t take it,” Betty said.

“I don’t want to make things more difficult,” Bertie replied.

“I want you to come with me now, he does too,” Betty said.

“Does he know?” Bertie asked.

“Not everything,” Betty admitted. “I’m sorry. But please, let me help you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love your feedback!


	2. Tantrum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's read, enjoyed, and provided feedback so far! I hope you all enjoy this next chapter.

Samson had been very hospitable with Bertie in his home. She had changed out of her wet clothes into some that Betty had given her. The curtains were drawn at every window. Samson was cooking dinner for the trio, while Bertie and Betty caught up.

 

“And they just let you stay?” Betty asked.

 

“I’m good at fixing things, so they let me stay. It was peaceful. For a long time that’s all I wanted. When I heard the drug dealer down in town had gotten internet, I couldn’t resist. That’s how I got to Sterns.”

 

“And trimethodine-”

 

Bertie sighed, “I didn’t think you could synthesize an inhibitor that complex but he did. I mean five years ago-”

 

“We’re all a lot further along than we were then,” Betty said. “But Sterns is way out in front on that score. He had some kind of ethics cloud around him at CalTech, but it didn’t stop him. His work is unbelievably brilliant. So, Brazil for the corablanca?”

 

“He’s synthesizing it, but I had to try to get it at the source. It took a long time just to get there. And I couldn’t get a thousandth of what I’d need. If he’s even right-”

 

“And now?” Betty asked.

 

“I go find him, I suppose,” Bertie explained. “I don’t know if he’s really got something and it’s a much longer shot without the data but I’ve gotta risk it.”

 

“No, you don’t,” Betty said. She stood up and went to the bookshelf, where there was a vase. She flipped the vase upside down, and a flash drive on a lanyard fell out onto the floor. She kneeled to lift it and brought it over to Bertie. “I got in there before they carted it all away. I hoped it would tell us something, someday.”

 

“Does the General know you have this?” Bertie asked.

 

“I don’t think so,” Betty said.

 

“He was there in Brazil. When they came for me. I saw him.”

 

“Oh my god,” Betty sighed. “He’s crazier than anybody knows. I’m so sorry. How did they find you?”

 

“I don’t know. I’m worried it might’ve been Sterns,” Bertie admitted.

 

“I hear he’s a total anarchist. Hates all authority. Doesn’t think he should answer to anybody. That’s why he got in trouble. Bruce, why didn’t you-” Betty was interrupted by her boyfriend, Samson, walking into the room.

 

“I think we’re all set,” he said.

 

Dinner was full of light, pleasant conversation. Samson told funny stories to get Betty and Bertie to laugh, and Bertie did manage a few weak chuckles. After dinner, Bertie was to sleep on the couch, while Betty went up to bed with her boyfriend. Bertie didn’t fall asleep very quickly. Being here, seeing Betty, and seeing Betty with that man, none of it made her happy. Memories of her and Betty were enduring in her mind. There was a noise in the dark. Bertie shot up, trying to keep her heart from hammering, looking around. A light clicked on. It was Samson. She sighed.

 

“You scared me,” Bertie said.

 

“Sorry,” Samson said. “I was hoping we could talk. Want some wine? I have a lot.”

 

“I don’t drink,” Bertie answered, pulling her knees to her chest. Samson shrugged and poured himself a glass of wine, sitting in the chair. He swirled it and took a long gulp. Bertie still looked at him unwaveringly, her chin set on her knees. Did he want her to say something? “You’ve been very generous,” she said. “I apologize to have dropped in like this.”

 

“I think I read a Raymond Carver story about a situation like this once,” Samson said. “I seem to remember thinking there was a lesson in it but it eludes me at the moment. So much for the insights of literature.”

 

“I didn’t come here to see Betty,” Bertie said.

 

“Then why did you come?” Samson asked.

 

“For work,” Bertie answered. “Our old project. I have a problem, and I thought part of the solution might be here.”

 

“Cryptic. But I’ll take it at face value. I’ll confess something to you if you clear up some things for me...First, I confess, as a man...as Betty’s lover.. that I have always hoped you were dead,” Samson said simply.

 

“Really?” Bertie asked, tilting her head. “Why?”

 

“Because I realized how she felt about you. How it seems you feel about her. And I was scared, and I admit I still don’t fully understand. I love Betty, and I’ve known that unless you were really gone, or she believed you were, that there would always be three of us in this relationship. And I don’t really measure up to you in her eyes, that I know,” Samson said. He took a drink and continued. “I’ve dreaded the thought of you walking through the door. But now that you’re here, I have to admit that I’m very happy about it. Because I’m a psychiatrist. And I’m very committed to putting light into dark corners, so to speak, and I’m very good at finding my way into the places people hide their secrets. I do it primarily because I think it helps them but also frankly because I’m interested in what people have to hide. Betty has a very dark corner that I have never found my way into, despite considerable, careful effort.” Samson took a drink while Bertie mused how uncomfortable his confession was making her. “And the only thing I know about her dark place is that you are in it. And I’m wondering if you’ll be honest enough to tell me: why are you something that she won’t talk about?”

 

Bertie sighed, “Barely anyone knew about us when we were together. Her family wouldn’t have approved, and we were worried about the impact that our relationship would have had on our jobs and our lives. We were used to being defensive around everyone.” She looked at Samson, who was quietly processing this information and continued. “I hurt her. I have issues, I’ve always struggled with my own mental health. I tend to have tantrums when I’m overwhelmed, it’s something I’ve been working on for years. Something happened, and I hurt her. I was afraid that it could happen again, so I left.”

 

“You don’t drop your career and fall off the face of the earth for five years because you’ve got an anger management issue, Bertie. You see a shrink.”

 

“You don’t have to preach the profession to me,” Bertie said. “I have a Ph.D. in psychology. But, what I’m dealing with is something much more complicated. I have to be alone. I worry about what I’ve done to Betty. If she’s happy and you’re a part of that, then that makes me very happy. The last thing I want to do is cause any trouble for her or for you. I’d kill myself before I’d hurt her again.”

 

“Totally honest and yet avoiding something. Exactly like her,” Samson observed, but he let the conversation end.

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning, everything went to hell. The morning had started off well enough. Betty was to drive her to the Greyhound bus station. They had stopped on the outskirts of the University so Bertie could look at Culver one last time. That was when she noticed the snipers. She told Betty to get out of there, and Bertie ran for tree cover.

 

She managed to weave through the trees and into the building. Sheltered in a stairwell, she pulled the data chip from the flash drive and swallowed it with a large swig of water. She wouldn’t lose the data after everything she had done to save it.

 

She flew up the stairs, dashing through the halls of the upper levels, changing direction, going up and down, trying to get lost. She opened the doors of one building and stumbled onto a pedestrian overpass connecting two buildings and covered in glass. Shit, she was out in the open. She ran to the other door, but it was locked, and there were soldiers on the side. She doubled back, but there were soldiers behind her as well. She was wondering why they weren’t making a move on her in the overpass when the glass on either side of her shattered. She feared they were grenades, but they were gas canisters, flooding the overpass with thick, opaque, white smoke. She dropped to her knees, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, hoping to keep herself conscious. She didn’t want to succumb to her other side.

 

The smoke was all around her, burning her sinuses and her chest, making her eyes water, making every breath hurt. She began to lose control of herself, her heart rate was shooting up, and she was gasping and crying and panting. Her head was going light, just as fogged as the air around her. She leaned a hand against the glass, trying to steady herself through the waves of dizziness. Her body was on fire, every muscle was burning, her skin was rippling, pulling and stretching. Her bones were lengthening. Her clothes were torn away from her body, the seams splitting as the fabric stretched around her frame.

 

The glass of the overpass shattered, and a towering, green figure launched out of it, tear gas trailing off of her body. She landed hunched over on the ground. The sweatshirt was stretched over her broad shoulders and broad chest, and the sweatpants’ elastic was barely keeping her clothed.

 

 

Immediately, a flame shot past her shoulder. She turned to a second humvee, its mount was a large flamethrower. The fire didn’t burn her, but it caught the shoulder of her sweatshirt and singed her limp, dark hair. She roared and hurled the crushed remains of the first vehicle at the second. There was a blast on the impact. She took heaving breaths, looking around for other assailants. The overpass where she had transformed was now filled with the soldiers who had cornered her. They kept the fire on her, but the spray of bullets was mostly annoying, and she was focused on getting away from all the noise.

 

 

She picked up two slabs of metal that must have come from the the ruins of the vehicles and used them as shields. Explosions started at her back, she turned around to see a soldier running at her, launching grenades at her.

 

 

She swiped at him with her pieces of metal, but he managed to dodge them at superhuman speeds. He launched off of one, twisted midair, and started to fire at her. She swiped at him, but he managed to continue to evade her.

 

 

Then, he started running. Furious, she chased him, right into the range of two humvees with mounted sonic cannons. The resulting blast knocked her backward, the low frequency warping the air around her. 

 

 

The sound engulfed her, sending her to her knees, clutching her ears, tears streaking her green cheeks. It was all so loud, it was all too much. She heard screaming. She turned to look at her side. Her vision was blurry, but she saw Betty, restrained by several soldiers, screaming “Bertie!”

 

The green woman didn’t care for Bertie, but she cared about Betty. She roared and hurled one of the shards of metal at one of the cannons. The metal slipped through the cannon and the humvee like they were soft cheese, and the vehicle smoked and charred from the small explosion. Then, she charged at the second one, her scrap raised as a shield. She launched into the air and crushed the humvee, she climbed off of it, shield raged to the onslaught of fire from the one soldier who wasn’t running away, the one who had been there in Brazil, the fast one. He dropped his empty gun. She stood still as he approached, head cocked to one side, curious as to what he was doing.

 

“Come on, Banner! That’s all you’ve got?” The man called at her. “I don’t know what I expected-”

 

Her right foot shot up into the air, and she pushed her hips forward. The powerful kick caught him in the chest and sent him tumbling backwards, body skidding in the grass and hitting a tree, broken and splintered, lying there like a limp doll. Anyone who had not evacuated was then doing so, except for Betty. She carefully walked toward the creature, who was taking heaving breaths.

 

“Bertie?” She asked delicately, looking up at her with hope.

 

The sound of machine guns sounded behind and above them. An oncoming helicopter with side-mounted firearms was flying overhead, two steady lines of grass and dirt were flying in the air and getting closer, the gun advancing. The creature kneeled around Betty, protecting her with her body and the scrap metal. The heavy ammunition sliced through her legs and tore skin and fabric off her back. Green blood stained her already burned and battered clothing. She was screeching in pain, but protecting Betty. Once the onslaught was gone, she stood up and hurled the last piece of scrap like a discus. It spun through the air and sliced the overhead rotor from the helicopter. There was a small blast from the impact, and a second, blazing one as the helicopter spun through the air, drifting right at her and Betty. She covered Betty again as the helicopter made an impact, drowning Betty and the thing in the fire.

 

“Betty!” A man called. It was her father, the General who had managed this whole ambush. The creature rose, lifting Betty’s limp body carefully and holding it away from the flames. She saw the man, she looked at him, and then she cradled Betty to her chest and ran away just as the skies opened up, pouring rain down on them.

 

* * *

 

 

After spending the night in a dark cave to escape from the rain, Bertie awoke in the cave in the morning. She was wrapped in Betty’s coat and wearing her socks. The clothes she had worn the day before were limply hanging off of her, battered, ripped, and burned. Stained in black dried blood. She had angry pink scars where the guns had ripped through her skin the day before. She and Betty walked together out of the woods to a roadside motel, where Betty acquired a room. Bertie cleaned off, her scars faded to nothing in the shower. Then, she made herself throw up, regurgitating the data drive she had swallowed the day before. Betty came back with a change of clothes. Stretchy purple pants, a black sports bra that was a few sizes too large, and a gray sweater. She and Betty spoke on the bed, legs crossed. They focused on the next step in the plan, they had to get to Stern if they were ever going to cure Bertie. The next morning, Betty pawned her mother’s necklace so they had enough cash. They abandoned her university ID, her credit cards, and her phone.

 

They made contact with Sterns by borrowing someone’s laptop in a gas station and they bought an old, decrepit pickup truck to drive to New York in. It took them a day and a half to reach the outskirts of New York, they were in traffic for the Holland Tunnel toll. Bertie noticed the military checking people’s ID and decided that they should abandon their car in the middle of the street and find a different way onto Manhattan Island. An old man kindly let them rent his fishing boat so they could go from New Jersey to New York. They opted not to take the metro for the complications of Bertie having a tantrum in a metal tube. Unfortunately, they managed to hire the worst cab driver in New York City. He jumped lanes sporadically, honked at everyone, sped through the city like a race car, nearly hit a bike messenger, blared the radio, and chatted on a cell phone for the majority of the ride. Bertie and Betty were flung around the backseat like ragdolls, and Bertie had to do everything she possibly could not to have a tantrum. Betty angrily hurled fistfulls of money at him when they reached their destination, yelling at him.

 

“-God forbid you'd give a _shit_ about the living, breathing people on the road and in the back of your office on wheels with no _shock absorbers_ -”

 

“What’s wrong, baby? You don’t like a good ride?” The driver asked. Betty shoved her heel into his back tail light as he sped off.

 

“Asshole!” She yelled after him.

 

“You know I can show you some techniques to help you manage your anger,” Bertie offered with a smile.

 

“Zip it. We’re walking,” Betty said, grabbing Bertie’s hand and strolling through the city toward Columbia University.

 

* * *

 

 

“Excuse me,” Betty walked up to a professor at Columbia. “Dr. Sterns?”

 

“Yes,” He nodded.

 

“Sorry to bother you. I’m Elizabeth Ross,” She said.

 

“Dr. Ross!” He exclaimed excitedly. “My goodness, I read your wonderful paper on synthesizing nucleotides. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

 

“There’s someone I would like to introduce you to,” she said, presenting Bertie as she walked over.

 

“Mr. Blue, I presume,” Bertie said.

 

“Miss Green!” He said excitedly. After hurried introductions, he escorted the two women to his lab.

 

His lab had the touch of a mad scientist. It was cluttered and full of documents, pages, and samples. He was talking excitedly about the project, “it took some work, let me tell you, we’ve never tried to concentrate the trimethadione a tenth of what your peak exposure correlates with. That you survived an event like that to stand here and discuss this - it has something to do with Dr. Ross’s protein primer capacitating the cells of course, but it’s beyond my reckoning. We could study it for years.

 

“But you think you’ve got the concentration right?” Betty asked.

 

“Well, yes,” Sterns nodded. “On paper anyway. And my cell saturation will make sure we don’t miss any spots. But even if we hit the levels right, I can’t promise this will cure you. It might only be an antidote to suppress the specific flare up. When you have one of these ‘spikes’ is the experience extreme?”

 

“You might say that,” Bertie nodded.

 

“Well, I can’t wait to see it! You know I must say, I wondered if you were real. And if you were, I wondered what it would look like - a person with that much power lurking in her. Nothing could have surprised me more than this unassuming young lady shaking my hand!”

 

“I’m not much younger than you,” Bertie said, puzzled.

 

“Yes, well,” Sterns cleared his throat. “I’d be remiss however if I didn’t point out that these concentrations carry extraordinary levels of toxicity. If we’re over by even a small integer, the residual could kill you. _Will_ kill you.”

 

“There’s a flip side to that,” Bertie informed. “If we miss on the low side, if we induce me and it fails, it will be very dangerous for _you_.”

 

Sterns smiled, “I’ve always been more curious than cautious. It’s served me well so far but if that’s what kills this cat in the end… Well, at least I’ll have peeked around a few corners.” He looked at Bertie and Betty, “So, then, we’re all agreed?” The duo nodded. He grinned like a child on Christmas. “Into the Glorious Unknown!”

 

To prepare for the procedure, Bertie stripped down to the stretchy purple pants and the loose sports bra. She gave her clothes to Betty, “Think of all the money I’ll save on wardrobe if this works. If this starts to go bad, promise me you won’t stay and try to help me.”

 

“Bert-”

 

“It’s the worst when it starts. You have to promise me you’ll run or I can’t do this.”

 

Hesitantly, Betty nodded.

 

Sterns indicated nylon restraints on the exam table, “If you have a strong reaction these will keep you from hurting yourself.”

 

“If I have a strong reaction you’re not going to need to worry about me.” Bertie said honestly. She climbed onto the table. Sterns adjusted it so she was lying at a slight angle and he fastened the restraints over her ankles and wrists. Sterns put an intravenous line in every limb and attached them to a cell saturation machine which was primed with the canister full of the antidote. Contact pads connected to a generator were placed on either side of her head. Bertie was given a plastic bite suppressor.

 

“Ready?” Sterns asked. Bertie nodded. He turned on the electricity and she was jolted, back arching and body spasming with pain. Her heart rate increased dramatically and she was straining against the straps, eyes clenched. The opened, the irises a vibrant green. Pulses of gamma radiation shot through her, her body started to ripple and bulge as it grew larger. “My god,” Sterns said, enraptured by her transformation. He stepped closer, becoming too close. Bertie easily ripped the restraints away and knocked Sterns away. She was more of creature than a woman now, and the table was crushing beneath her.

 

“Now! Do it!” Betty yelled at Sterns, telling him to activate the antidote. He was too dazed to get there quick enough, so she leapt onto her bulging, green chest. “Bertie! Bertie, please, stay with me,” she urged. Bertie howled. “Do it NOW!” Betty yelled. Sterns finally activated the antidote, and it rushed into her, standing out on her veins. It looked painful, but she slowly shrunk back down to her typical human form, panting and drenched in sweat. Betty was straddling her hips and checking her face, both worried and glad that the antidote had worked.


	3. Showdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed this thus far.
> 
> I am cranking out chapters for this quite quickly because I know that all of you who are following my series are probably looking forward to Iron Maiden 2 after this one is finished. And to be honest, so am I. I like Bertie Banner as a character, but her standalone movie is objectively bad, and I am so excited to start publishing Iron Maiden 2 (which may be up before the end of the week!)
> 
> This chapter is basically one really long fight scene because that's precisely what the movie climax is! It's so annoying that most of the character development in this movie follows Ross and Blonsky and completely ignores its main character except for the big CGI fight scenes. Even Edward Norton's script, which has more character development than the actual movie, doesn't focus on the title character.
> 
> I'm ranting, I just wish that I could have improved the introduction to Bertie better, but there was little to work with, and none of it was inspiring.

After the antidote was successful, Dr. Sterns was rapidly speaking about the event with the maniacal glee of someone who didn’t understand how close they were to dying. “-The pulse came from the amygdala. I think Dr. Ross’ ‘primer’ lets the cells absorb the energy temporarily and then it abates. That’s why you didn’t die of radiation sickness years ago. Now maybe we’ve neutralized those cells permanently, or maybe we just suppressed that event. I’m inclined to think the latter because none of our test subjects had a decline in absorption capacity, but of course, they were getting Gamma in much lower doses externally each time - But You! It’s like you’ve got a turbo booster in your brain. It’s one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever seen!”

“It’s not wonderful for Bertie,” Betty said.

“In a medical science sense, of course. You’re miraculous,” Sterns said.

“So how did you know it would work?” Betty asked.

“I didn’t. But now that we have the data on Bertie’s initial-”

“Wait,” Bertie said abruptly. “You said ‘test subjects.’ What test subjects?”

Sterns beckoned them through his labs to a section behind several large doors. Inside were rows and rows of animals in various stages of greyish and misshapen.

“Oh my god,” Bertie said, looking around the rows of failures. “What have you been doing?”

Sterns replied, “Well you didn’t send me much of yourself to work with, and I couldn’t risk blowing the opportunity, so we concentrated it and grew more. The same thing you were trying to do with the corablanca! You were my flower, see?” Bertie was horrified. Her worst fear was replication, and now there was a whole room dedicated to it. Sterns continued, “A lot of the first pass didn’t survive of course but as you can see we’re doing much better. And we’re only giving them very low-dose Gamma so no power-lifters yet but the interesting thing-”

“You’ve got to destroy all of it,” Bertie said abruptly.

“Sorry - what?” Sterns asked, aghast. 

“All of it. Right now. Show me your supply.”

“You must be joking. We’ll share a Nobel for this, the three of us! Think of the applications-” Stern began.

“I don’t care about that. It doesn’t matter if it can be controlled,” Bertie said.

“But we have the antidote now-” Sterns began.

“I’m the way I am because of a military experiment,” Bertie said. “For super soldiers and war. They don’t want the antidote! They want a weapon. They want it to fight for them, and if they get it then we lose control of it!”

“Oh, look, I hate the government too, but you're a little paranoid, don’t you thi-” Sterns was interrupted by the crunching sound of breaking glass. Bertie slumped forward with an odd look on her face. A tranquilizer dart was sticking out of the back of her neck. 

“Get out now,” Bertie said, her voice slow and weak. She collapsed onto her knees, and Betty caught her from falling further forward. The dart must have been useful because instead of becoming the creature, her eyes were fluttering closed. The door burst open and the soldier who Bertie had kicked and pulverized stormed in. He was not a reasonable man. He pushed Betty aside, and she flew across the room, smacking into a wall. 

“Come on, come on, where IS IT?” Blonsky looked at Bertie expectantly, but she could barely stay awake. She was furious, but her heart rate was too low to become anyone else.

“Blonsky!” A voice called as several soldiers came inside as well. A sharp pain struck across her face as the soldier, Blonsky, hit her in the head with the butt of his rifle.

 

* * *

 

When Bertie returned to consciousness, she was still groggy and sedated, bound to a stretcher with wrist shackles that utilize electromagnetic fields to contain her even if she had a tantrum. They decided she had awoken enough to go to her feet, and they walked her into the rear ramp of a cargo plane. Betty stayed at Bertie’s side, her wrist in a splint from Blonsky’s assault. 

“Betty-” General Ross tried to address his daughter.

“I will never forgive what you have done to her. And to me,” Betty spat.

Ross sighed, “She is a fugitive. She made her choices, and I have a responsibility-”

“You made her a fugitive! To cover your failures and save your career. She told me what you said to her after the accident, before I woke up - what you proposed - that’s why she ran away and gave up.”

“Her work and her blood are the property of the United States Army, and my duty supersedes my personal feelings about this matter-” Ross was interrupted by Betty, who was practically foaming at the mouth.

“She’s a human being, and she is not your property. You can’t own her or any part of her. The fact that you try is why you disgust me. Don’t ever speak to me as your daughter, not ever again.”

“It’s only because you’re my daughter that you’re not in handcuffs too,” General Ross said. “You’ve always taken for granted what I’ve done for you.”

“You’ve taken more from me than what you’ve given,” Betty said. “I’d much rather you handcuff me than pretend to care about me.”

Betty sat across from Bertie in the back of the plane. The General headed to the front with the communications staff and a series of monitors. Bertie could just barely hear what was being said on that end of the plane. They took off and were somewhere over the Hudson River when the radio crackled, “Delta-Four to  Leader, something big just went off down here!”

The General answered, “This is Ross. What went off?”

“The whole floor just blew out Blonsky, Stoller, Robertson and the Major - they were all still up there!”

“Get our teams moving back there and get PD Special Units out. Turn us around!”

“We’re going back,” Bertie whispered to Betty.

The radio crackled again, “The Hulk’s in the street!” A soldier called. “Repeat: The Hulk is in the street!” Bertie assumed that her other side was “The Hulk” based on the way they said it, and how General Ross looked at her in shock. Although, that didn’t explain how it was in the street when she was clearly in the plane. She was afraid it was something from Stern’s experiments. “One-twentieth and Broadway, heading up Broadway!” The soldier chattered.

“Then stay with it and get me a visual, we’ve got help on the way. Now get moving!” Ross ordered. There were a few minutes of crackling radio static and undeterminable street sounds.

“One twenty-first street moving north, what  _ is _ that thing?” The soldiers on the ground reported.

Ross was entranced with the monitors. Apparently, the soldiers on the ground had body cameras. “Goddamnit!” He yelled into the radio. “I said get my eyes on that thing!”

Bertie’s curiosity was overwhelming, and she stood up, slowly walking toward Ross in a trance-like manner.

“Sit down!” Her guard soldier said, sticking the barrel of his gun in her face.

“Shoot me. Let’s see what happens,” Bertie goaded. He lowered his weapon. Bertie continued toward the monitors, Betty was quickly on her rear. The image of havoc in the heart of Harlem was on screen: fire, screaming pedestrians, upturned cars, and a massive grey creature in the middle of it all. It looked nearly reptilian. The body was misshapen in the strangest ways. For example, the tendons on the neck were very defined, the ribcage was larger than the pelvis, and bony protrusions ran down the spinal column. The creature couldn’t have had an ounce of body fat, and was purely bulging muscle and enlarged bones. Its mottled grey skin was lined with greenish veins, and a thick, glossy sheen that Bertie swore was slime. It was an abomination.

“Sir, are you seeing this? What the hell is that? Is that Banner?” A soldier on the ground asked.

“No,” Ross said, double-checking that Bertie was beside him. “Is it Sterns?”

The radio crackled as a third person joined the line, it was a woman Bertie believed to be Major Cabot, “General, it’s Blonsky. Sterns is dead - It’s Blonsky.” She sounded strained and in pain.

Ross started barking orders like a madman, “Hit it with whatever you’ve got, try to draw it after you and get it to the river. We’ve got cutters on both sides of the island with sonic!”

They watched onscreen as the soldiers tried to launch an RPG at the abomination, but it just caught the missile mid-air and smiled as it exploded. He threw a speeding cab right at the humvee the soldiers were covering behind, the camera feeds fizzled out.

The communications officer spoke, “General, NYPD wants to know what to use against it, SAC has that A-10 in the air and ready. What do you want me to tell them?” There was a pause. “Sir?”

“The sound waves stopped it at the campus. They stopped Bertie,” Betty offered helplessly.

“They need an open field of fire, there’s too much down there to absorb them too many places to hide,” The General said.

“You can’t stop it. You have to kill it,” Bertie said.

“And what do you propose, a bomb? How big it should be, you tell me!” General Ross roared.

“You have to take me back there,” Bertie said.

“No,” Betty looked distraught.

“She’s the only thing that can stop it. _I’m_ the only thing that can stop it,” Bertie argued.

“Forget it, if I put you down there you won’t fight, you’ll run,” General Ross said.

“I know it’s a foreign concept to you, but I care about people,” Bertie said. “And she - the Hulk - she’s just scared most of the time. She’s large, and she’s powerful, and she’s scared because she's still me, parts of me, anyway. I may not be able to control her, but I can aim her.”

“Put us down near it,” Ross ordered. “Get those cuffs off her.”

“No,” Bertie said. “Put me over it, go higher, and open the door.” They freed her wrists, and she slowly made her way to the opening ramp. The brisk wind whipped at her hair, and she saw the city some three-thousand feet below her.

“Oh my god - no!” Betty said, coming over. “What are you doing? You don’t even know if you’ll turn!”

“I tried to do this a long time ago when I thought I’d killed you. She wouldn’t let me.”

“This is too risky, it’s insane!” Betty exclaimed.

Betty was always the risky one. Bertie was ritualistic, conservative in her social life, extremely introverted, and rigid to the rules. It was Betty who took her, dragged her out of graduate school, and made her experience life. It was Betty who got her to take hallucinogens and climb up mountains. It was Betty that made Bertie fall in love. And now, it was Bertie who was about to jump out of a plane and fight a giant monster, and Betty who was begging her to be safer. To be more careful. To be more concerned. And the deep irony at this moment, and the fear that she would never get to see Betty again, and just the desire that had been festering since she saw her at Culver University just a few days ago all coalesced. Bertie pushed forward and kissed Betty for the first time in nearly five years. Betty kissed her back with equal passion and insistence. Bertie pulled away, looked in her blue eyes one last time, and fell backward out of the plane and into the city below.

She fell, and the fear that he wouldn’t turn started to overwhelm her. How long was it until she reached the ground? What if she splattered onto the pavement, useless, and failed doing the one thing that may redeem her? However, the fear and the fall combined caused her heart to hammer in her chest and her ears until the steady, rapid thrum overwhelmed her. Everything went unfocused, and she became dizzy and in excruciating pain as her skin rippled and stretched around her. She hit the ground, forming a large crater, and coming out slowly as the Hulk. The only clothes that had survived her transformation were the black sports bra and the purple stretchy pants. 

The Hulk was overwhelmed. It was loud and blurred all around her. There was screaming, sirens, and roaring in the distance. The Hulk wanted to destroy the source of all the noise and chaos and return to peace. She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to clear it and focus herself. She saw the grey creature, the Abomination, wreaking havoc. She roared, shattering glass and rattling rubble. Abomination turned and looked at Hulk, recognition flashing in his eyes. He started sprinting at her, and she squared herself to hold her ground. He came with arms swinging, and she caught his head with both arms extended and pulled it forward, crashing his head into her knee, resulting in a loud crunching noise.

The Abomination stumbled backward, enraged. He swung wildly at her once more, she blocked him, but his bony spines scratched her flesh. When the Hulk retaliated, she sent thunderous punches and kicks at weaker spots, like his knees, throat and face. 

The flesh on her knuckles was shredding with the intensity of her onslaught. The Abomination managed to grab her from behind in a chokehold. She dropped to one knee and levered him over her shoulder, sending him crashing into the ground. 

She grabbed his arm and twisted it in his socket behind him, pulling tendons to their limit. The Abomination roared and swiped at her, pulling her foot out from under her. They both stumbled back to their feet. They returned to their intense battle. The Abomination lunged at her and the Hulk ducked under his arms and grabbed him around the middle, running and pushing him into a wall as hard as she could. She backed up and slammed her shoulders into his bony ribcage again and again, trying to shatter it. He punched her back and leaped onto her, sending her crashing to the ground under his greater mass. He punched her again and again and again. With a lull as he cackled in her face, she bent her legs to her chest and squeezed his small head between her thighs, ankles crossing at his back. His spine cut into her legs and feet, but she still squeezed with her might, fending off his arms. The Abomination managed to grab a fallen light pole and slam it into her face, she backed away, making wounded noises. While vulnerable, the Abomination grabbed her by the ankle and flung her. 

She soared through the sky for about a block until crashing into a building. She looked up and saw the Abomination advancing. She stayed in her prone position until the last moment, when she leapt to one side so he crashed into the wall, barrelling through it and tumbling onto his face. The Hulk grabbed him by his ankles and dragged him out, but his boney hands stuck into the ground, keeping her from moving him. Frustrated, she jumped into the air and dove her elbow into the back of his ribs, below his scapula. The Abomination roared with pain, flipped over, and kicked her with both legs into a different building. She shook herself off, but it was too late to avoid the onslaught of punching. She managed to move her head after several attacks ripped up her face, and the Abomination’s hand was impaled in the building, stuck. The Hulk forced his face into her knee several times, and then sent her foot into his knee so he dropped it. She smashed both hands together over his head. The Abomination roared, ripping his hand free, and forcing her into the air with a powerful uppercut. She tumbled backward. The Abomination went to a water tower in a nearby open space, and ripped out one of the supportive iron girders. He swung it at the Hulk like a baseball bat. The sickening sound sent the Hulk back another block. 

The military plane with Betty and General Ross opened fire on the Abomination, its heavy ammunition bouncing harmlessly of his bony plating, but ripping easily through his gray flesh, which oozed dark blood. Enraged, the Abomination launched the girder like a javelin at the plane, which narrowly missed. Still furious, the Abomination grabbed a satellite off a nearby building and flung it again at the plane to abate the fire. Just as he launched the disk, the Hulk rushed toward him and kicked him so hard that the Abomination folded in half and tumbled through the grass into the base of the water tower. The satellite had hit the tail of the helicopter and it spiraled downward, crashing into the park below. The Hulk ran at the Abomination again, pushing him through the bottom of the water tower. The legs fell, and hundreds of gallons of water fell, blasting everywhere. The Abomination charged the Hulk into the building and put a forearm against her throat, bone plates digging in. The Hulk could see behind the Abomination that the helicopter was starting to blaze, and trapped in the crash, was Betty. A wave of panic and determination washed through the Hulk, and she grabbed the Abomination’s elbow and pushed it into his chest, freeing her throat. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, one of his arms was pinned across his throat and the other on the opposite side so he could barely swipe at her. The Hulk pulled him back and swiped his legs out from under him, knocking the Abomination to the ground. She dug her knees into each arm, sat on his chest, and struck him in the face several times at a rapid speed. She stood up and jumped on his head with both feet, sending it deep into the pavement. She stood up and rushed over to the flaming helicopter. 

With all her might, she clapped her hands together. A gust of air blew out the flames. The Hulk didn’t have time to relax, as the Abomination came up from behind her and struck her head from behind. She stumbled forward and turned around as the Abomination brought his hands over his head and down on her. She caught them, square in her stance and straining against him as he pushed down on her. He dropped his hands and sent a swinging kick into her side. The bony plating ripped through her side and she collapsed onto one knee. She groaned and strained, but lunged forward at the Abomination’s other leg before he could complete the motion of the kick. He fell onto his face behind her. Weakened but even more determined, the Hulk rose to her feet. The Abomination pushed himself to his knees and the Hulk jumped up and landed on his shoulders, legs tucking around his arms and ankles crossing at his back. He rolled and tried to shake her off, but she pulled his arms away from his chest and held on. He flung her onto her back, but she pulled him down with her. He kicked and writhed in her grasp. Slowly, she grabbed his head. One hand was tucked under his chin and the other pressed down on the top of his head. With a final roar of effort, the Hulk twisted and pulled at the Abomination’s head. There was a sickening pop as his neck went at an odd angle and his body went limp in her grasp. She released the Abomination and pushed his body away. She stood up, panting. She was streaked with blood, covered in ash and rubble, and deep gashes were splayed across her flesh.

Betty approached the Hulk, who looked down at her with recognition. “Shh,” Betty said in a calm voice. “It’s over.”

 

“Betty,” The Hulk said her name, her voice was soft and deep. She reached out and caressed Betty’s cheek delicately. Betty closed her eyes and sighed, tears springing at her eyes.

Overhead, bright lights and the loud beating of helicopters started, upsetting the Hulk again. Frustrated but not eager to hurt anyone else, the Hulk sprinted out of Harlem and dove into the River.

 

* * *

 

A month later, Bertie was sitting in a shack on the sea with a yellow packaging envelope and a postcard. Inside the envelope was Betty’s mother’s necklace, which Bertie had spent a good two weeks tracking down. She was writing a letter to Betty. She told her that she was safe, that she was going to keep moving, and that she wanted Betty to be happy and healthy in a simple life, like the one she deserved. Samson Adams was a good man, and Bertie believed that Betty deserved a quiet life with the right person. It would take a month or so for the letter to get from the middle of the tropical ocean to the United States. By then, Bertie would undoubtedly have moved again. There was a transpacific cargo liner that could take Bertie to Asia, where she believed she could find someplace to hide out and live in in relative safety from the United States. She didn’t tell Betty where she was heading, but she did tell her that she loved her, that she would miss her, and that Betty deserved more than her. Satisfied that she had said all she could, Bertie closed the envelope and addressed it.

A few days later, when she was headed to the docks, Bertie dropped the envelope off at a local post office and climbed aboard the ship. While there, she kept to herself when she could, and worked on repairs for the crew as payment for allowing her to stow away. 

It had taken some traveling until she managed to find an abandoned island bungalow. She knew she couldn’t stay there forever, and she had plans already on where to head next. She sat on the beach in the lotus position, meditating. This was common practice for her to steady herself and pass the time. The heart monitor on her wristwatch indicated that her heart was going about forty beats per minute. It was slow and steady for a while as she focused on her breathing. Then, Bertie forced her heart to head the other direction, the beats per minute spiking to nearly two hundred. She opened her eyes, which were glowing green, and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who read, I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> I love to talk to you guys! So please, if you have any comments, feedback, or you merely want to say 'hi' I would like to hear from you!
> 
> If you're interested in keeping up with this universe, feel free to bookmark or subscribe to my "Anything You Can Do" series or drop in on my Tumblr aycdicdbmcu.tumblr.com


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